Today was my first day back at work after being discharged.
Thanks to the pointless things Vasily said in his interview, I, who hadn’t been employed for long, had become a minor celebrity. On my way in, a team leader from another department—whose face I barely even knew—recognized me and wouldn’t let me go, draining me from the morning.
When I sat down and, by habit, reached for coffee first, Jo Wooyeon poked his head out from the opposite side.
“Kidam, are you okay? You’ve already taken off the bandage?”
“Yes. I’m already all healed.”
“You’re sturdy…… It feels like you should’ve awakened as an esper, not a guide.”
“Tell me about it.”
I agreed with that. If I was going to enter gates anyway, at least if I’d awakened as an esper, I wouldn’t have been dragged around by Vasily.
Though I hadn’t seen this coworker in a while, we couldn’t talk for long. Maybe because it was a Monday after the weekend had slipped by, the waiting list for temporary guiding flooded in right at nine.
Work started in a blur the moment I returned. Guiding without even having time to slip to the bathroom in between, I realized that the entire morning had already passed.
I finished an hour of temporary guiding for a D-class esper—the last one before lunch—and was about to head back to my seat when, from far off, my supervisor called me.
“Kidam. A request for designated guiding came in—want to check it?”
“Designated guiding?”
“It’s when an esper picks the temporary guide they want and applies. You can refuse, so if they seem weird, you don’t have to take it.”
“Ah…… I’ll check.”
I tilted my head as I walked back to my desk. How long had it even been since I started as a temporary guide for a designated request to come in already?
I booted up the computer and logged into the work system right away. A notification said there was one request for designated guiding. When I clicked it, a familiar face appeared on the screen.
“……Vasily.”
My mood sank in an instant.
Even in a photo, Vasily stared past the screen with a cold expression, and my face hardened. I’d thought he’d be losing interest by now—was that a mistake? That he would go so far as to apply for designated guiding just to come see me. I bit my lip, hard.
Right next to Vasily’s name was a “Reject” button. I really wanted to press it, but I held back. In the position of a temporary guide, I couldn’t refuse an S-class esper’s request. And even if I did refuse, he’d find some way to track me down anyway.
Besides, if I openly avoided him, Vasily might sense something off and try to get even closer to me. Rather than provoking pointless curiosity, the best plan was to go along with his whim obediently and let his interest slowly die out.
Click.
With the sound of the mouse pressing the accept button, my expression darkened sharply. Vasily’s name was automatically added to the schedule.
Thinking of how he hadn’t come to visit since the first day, I prayed earnestly: please let him be too busy to come today, too.
But my hopes were thoroughly crushed.
“Long time no see, Guide Kwon Gidam.”
I had intentionally come in thirty minutes late, but the moment I faced Vasily welcoming me in the guiding room without a hint of discomfort, I couldn’t control my expression.
“Hello, Esper Vasily.”
I forced a smile and greeted him—still not understanding why he was here.
The time now was 1:30. I had come in a full thirty minutes later than the scheduled time, but Vasily was waiting for me politely.
‘I thought he would’ve already left.’
Vasily usually valued punctuality to the point it felt like an obsession. I’d assumed that if I was late, an offended Vasily would leave without getting guided. The plan to come in late on purpose and make him leave on his own had failed completely.
He had waited thirty whole minutes for a mere C-class guide.
I glanced at Vasily to gauge his mood. He seemed to be smiling, but I still couldn’t read his expression or his thoughts.
“You’ve taken off the bandage. Are you all healed?”
“Yes. There’s a scar left, but I’m fine now.”
“Then today we can do contact guiding, right?”
Vasily asked with a smile. The moment I heard his question, I regretted nodding without thinking.
'Contact guiding?'
Last time, it had been just holding hands, and I’d barely managed to endure touching him. But now the situation was different. The thought that I’d have to hold him and conduct contact guiding made a strong aversion squirm up inside me.
My legs wouldn’t move, as if frozen. Just having to go near him made my body react in rejection.
But I couldn’t run away after coming this far. I forced my stiff, tense body to move and barely managed to sit down in front of him.
Still, this was a guiding room; if anything happened, someone would check the ceiling camera and rush in. I couldn’t relax and glanced up at the camera—only to see a lump of ice hanging there like an icicle where the camera should have been.
“W-wait, why is the CCTV—!”
“Oh, that? I don’t much like being watched.”
“And your solution is to freeze it?!”
“It’s fine. I got permission from the Association. See? No one’s coming.”
Just as he said, there was no sign of anyone coming. Normally, if anything went wrong during temporary guiding—or even if the CCTV feed froze—security would treat it as an emergency and come running, but the hall outside was quiet.
“Are you scared?”
“…….”
“Your body is shaking.”
Vasily asked in a low voice. I was so tense I couldn’t open my mouth. My pounding heartbeat was speeding up, and I could feel that Vasily had noticed it.
“……I was just a little startled.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything. I’ll only receive guiding.”
I tried to act calm, but my voice spilled out with a tremor running up my throat. Vasily gave a gentle smile as if to reassure me, but when I saw that his eyes weren’t smiling at all, my heart sank.
Grinding my teeth, I remembered how he had ruthlessly taken guiding. I was anxious, not knowing when the one pretending to be kind would show his true colors.
Maybe because the match rate was low now, he wasn’t showing excessive obsession, but the fear that he could change at any moment kept circling in a corner of my mind.
In the narrow guiding room that held only chairs, a small table, and a cot, there was nowhere to run. The ceiling camera was useless. The only thing to lean on was the fact that the guiding room’s soundproofing was notoriously weak.
In that suffocating tension, the guiding began.
“……Before we start guiding, I’ll explain the precautions.”
Temporary guiding was a bit different from regular guiding. An esper was absolutely not allowed to touch the temporary guide’s body first, and unnecessary contact was not permitted.
There were many espers who complained that it was needless regulation since we’d be touching anyway, but this rule was the most basic safety device for the guide. Since no one knew what a guide-deprived esper might try, if anything felt off, the temporary guide could refuse guiding on the grounds of violating precautions.
“You can’t put your hands on my body, and you can’t attempt unnecessary contact.”
“Even that’s not allowed? Strict.”
Vasily made a displeased face, but soon he nodded and waited quietly for me to approach.
I swallowed with a gulp, tense, and stretched out my arm.
I felt a gaze watching me from right above. Feeling my body stiffen further under that pressure, I carefully laid my hand on Vasily’s back.
The moment I touched his solid body, a familiar chill spread. Thanks to the suppression chip, that former knife-like pain didn’t come. Instead, a cool cold seeped into my body and settled in my heart.
When I wrapped my arms around Vasily’s back, his cold breath touched the nape of my neck. Goosebumps prickled up, and I flinched for an instant. He was like a massive wall. A massive wall that felt like it could crush me mercilessly.
Every tiny movement he made felt like a threat to me. With a single gesture of his hand, I felt I might freeze solid at once. The faces of the people he’d killed flickered through my head, one after another.
He stayed silent and still. Contrary to what I’d expected, Vasily was simply receiving guiding quietly. I had even made plans to run if he tried anything strange, but when he didn’t so much as twitch, suspicion crept in.
Did he really come only to receive guiding?
But I couldn’t understand why he would want guiding from me. I focused every nerve in my body, but the sensation of guiding was faint. Vasily would be feeling that just fine as well.
I recalled the information about Vasily I’d looked up before coming into the guiding room. He currently had no exclusive guide.
Vasily’s waves were as cruel as his personality. Those sharp waves froze the other person in an instant, and I, too, would get frostbite at the drop of a hat even in midsummer.
That was probably why Vasily still hadn’t found a guide who could withstand his waves. But he was an S-class esper—so even if the match rate wasn’t high, he should at least have a support guide he could call on for guiding when he was in bad shape.